Safety appliance for railway-cars.



G. M. MOGK & A. U. GERBER.

SAFETY APPLIANCE FOB. RAILWAY CARS. APPLICATION FILED 312.10, 1913.

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Patented Feb. 3, 1914.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA c UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

CHARLES M. MOCK AND ARTHUR U. GERBER, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

SAFETY APPLIANCE FOR RAILWAY-CARS.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that We, CHARLES M. Moor; and ARTHUR U. GERBER, citizens of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improve ments in Safety Appliances for Railway- Cars; and we do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

Our invention relates to safety appliances for railway cars, and particularly for cars having brakes normally held out of engagement with the wheels and adapted to be applied to the wheels by pneumatic mechanism, which mechanism is set in operation when air pressure is reduced in a brake-pipe. In our copending application for U. S. Letters Patent, Ser. No. 743,622, we have shown and described a safety appliance of this class in which this brake-actuating reduction of the air pressure in a brake pipe is effected by the rupturing of a closure for the said pipe, the rupturing being caused by the impingement upon the track system of a partially-fragile portion of the safety appliance.

Our present invention relates to safety appliances of this class in which the brakeactuating reducing of the air pressure is effected by the opening of a valve or seal having a movable member, its prime object being to provide a brake-pipe valve adapted to be actuated by the impingement of a portion of the valve against a part of the track system.

A further object is to provide means for retaining the valve in its open or pressurereducing position when it has been opened temporarily, so as to insure a sufliciently prolonged opening of the valve to effect a setting of the brakes.

In the drawings, Figure 1 shows a sectional elevation of a safety appliance embodying our invention. Fig. 2 shows an alternative embodiment. Fig. -3 shows a fragmentary view on a smaller scale, of a portion of a track system and of a car equipped with the device of our invention.

In carrying out our invention, we preferably mount the safety appliance upon some portion of the car truck in such a position that the knob or enlargement 1 at the lower end of the appliance will be slightly above the top of the rail and laterally displaced Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed February 10, 1913.

Patented Feb. 3, 1914. Serial No. 747,532.

with relation to the same. This knob 1 is connected by a stem 2 to a plunger disk 3 adapted to engage a valve seat 4, whereby a longitudinal motion of the stem will raise the disk 3 from its seat, thereby connecting the chamber 5 (and the brake-pipe 6 leading to the same) through theplunger chamber 7 and vents 8 with the outer air. The disk 3 is normally held tightly against the seat 4 by a compression spring 9 thereby preventing the accidental unlodging of the disk by the vibration of the car upon which the appliance is mounted. V

In Fig. l the housing of the appliance is made of three portions, viz. an upper or base portion 10 adapted to be secured to a part 11 of the car truck, a cylinder 12 threadedly connected to the base 10 and carrying the seat 4, and a cap 13 provided with vents 8 and with a perforated portion 14 in which the stem 2 is adapted to slide freely. Journaled to the cap 13 within the chamber 7 upon opposite sides of the stem 2 are pawls 14 connected by a tension spring 15 which normally holds these pawls against the opposite sides of a disk 16 rigidly mounted upon the stem 2. Each of the pawls 14 has at its upper end a shoulder 17 adapted to impinge against the lower edge of the disk 16 when the latter is raised to the position shown in dotted lines, thereby preventing the spring 9 from returning the valve plunger to its closure position when it has once been raised to the position shown in dotted lines.

Instead of having a pair of pawls adapted to engage a disk or other projection upon the valve stem, a pawl 18 pivotally mounted upon the stem (as in Fig. 2) may be adapted to engage the end of an inwardly directed boss 19 on the cap of the valve casing. In this case a compression spring 20 bearing at opposite ends against the cylinder 12 of the housing and against the pawl 18 will normally hold the said pawl against the side of the boss (thereby keeping it from being vibrated by the jolting of the car) and will hold the pawl in endward engagement with the boss when the plunger has been raised to the valveopening position shown in dotted lines in Fig. 2. In either case, the pawl coacts with the valve stem for holding the valve continuously open when once opened, thereby insuring a sufiicient emission of air from the brake pipe 6 to effect the setting of the brakes by.

the pneumatic mechanism controlled by the air within the said brake pipe. Consequently, the impinging of the knob 1 against the top of the rail 21 upon derailment of the wheel, adjacent to which the safety device is mounted, will effect the setting of the air-brakes on the car regardless of whether the impinging knob 1 rides continuously upon the rail or only impinges against the rail momentarily. The car having been stopped by such a setting of the brakes, the safety appliance can readily be reset to its normal position by inserting a tool through the vents 8 to release the pawls or detents.

While we have shown a button shaped head on the member which is disposed in proximity to a part of the track system and which is adapted to be moved by contacting with the latter, we do not wish to be limited to this particular construction; nor to a slidable relation between the parts comprising the seal; nor to the use of pivoted pawls as the retaining means; nor to the above described method of manually releasing the detents, since these and other details could be greatly varied without departing from the spirit of our invention.

We claim as our invention:

1. A safety appliance for a railway car equipped with an air-brake, comprising an outlet for air from the air-brake system; a spring-held valve controlling the outlet; a casing housing the Valve; a detachable cap for the casing; a plunger carried by the valve and projecting through the cap, the free end of the plunger disposed in proximity to the track system and adapted upon derailment of the car to contact with a portion of the track system and to be moved by the said contacting, thereby opening the valve; and a spring actuated detent carried by the cap and engaging the plunger to hold the same in its valve-opening position when the plunger is moved thereto.

2. A safety appliance for a railway car equipped with an air-brake, comprising an outlet for air from the air-brake system; a spring-held valve controlling the outlet; a casing housing the valve; a plunger carried by the valve, the free end of the said plunger disposed in proximity to the track system and adapted upon derailment of the car to contact with a portion of the track system and to be moved by the said contacting, thereby opening the valve; and a spring actuated detent within the casing engaging the plunger to hold the same in its valveopening position when the plunger is moved thereto; there being openings in the casing permitting access to the detent for releasing the same.

In testimony whereof we have signed our names in presence of two subscribing wit- ALBERT SCI-IEIBLE.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Gommissioner of Patents Washington, D. G. 

